Hello and Advice on Build Sought

Hello and Advice on Build Sought

Hello!

This is my first post to the list and by way of introduction, I'll say that
I am a reasonably new FFMPEG user.

My main personal project is a motorcycle video website called Kapital Moto
TV - http://www.kapitalmototv.co.uk When I launched this I made a decision
to use QuickTime H.264 video, rather than the ubiquitous Flash. I wanted a
better quality viewing experience, at perhaps a hit on the installed
userbase. Turns out to be a good decision as the new Flash 9 player support
H.264 MOV files no problem (See http://www.kapitalmototv.co.uk/flash/ ) I
would loved to have used Ogg Theora. I created some test files and tried
Fluendo's Cortardo Java app, but at the time decided on QuickTime.

To create my clips up until now I have been using a combination of QuickTime
Pro, MPEGStreamclip and Adobe Premiere Elements on a Windows XP box. I may
have also accidentally, from time to time, used someone else's Telestream
FlipFactory to do some bulk transcoding. Ahem.

I want to move away from this setup and have my dedicated Linux server
transcode "on the fly." I intend to do this through a combination of using
FFMPEG as the transcode workhorse, cron jobs and shell scripts.

Recently I have successfully compiled FFMPEG from SVN . I wrote about the
method I used on my Debian Etch server:

- From my build review linked to above, should I have enabled anything else
to ensure the optimum output? For example, swscaler? If so, I'd appreciate
any links to where I can read more about whatever enabling is recommended so
I can understand what I am doing

- Any suggestions on refinements when executing FFMEG? I'm sure as I read
more documentation and examples I'll find my own, but suggestions always
welcome.

- How do I enable QuickTime fast start? I've seen qt-faststart mentioned,
but haven't found any documents with further explanation yet.

So, that's quite an introductory post! Thanks for taking the time to read it
and I look forward to your responses.